Boruto: Naruto Next Generations Episode 269

What’s Up With Hana-sensei?

We have some interesting stuff to discuss this week. Boruto: Naruto Next Generations Episode 269 had quite a few twists. The first twist I want to discuss has to do with Hana-sensei. In my Episode 268 review, I discounted her as a suspect because she was too suspicious.

But, right at the start of Episode 269, I changed my mind about that. After her students visit the hospital, Hana-sensei comments on having memory loss. As soon as she said this, I immediately thought it must mean she was being controlled. That would explain everything.

Unfortunately, we don’t actually have to theorize about this anymore. The preview for the next episode confirmed that this is the case. I would have really liked it if the preview didn’t confirm this. I mean, now I can’t act all smug about my prediction when we see the reveal next week.

Now, while we know Hana-sensei is being controlled, we don’t know by whom. And, we also don’t know why — which might be a bit unexpected. Obviously, whoever’s controlling her wants to assassinate Kae, right? Well, not exactly. We have no proof Hana-sensei’s involved in that.

We know that one of the ministers in the Land of Bamboo went down for being the mastermind. And we know the masked assassin going after Kae’s life was not Hana-sensei. There’s no evidence pointing toward Hana-sensei’s involvement. At this point, we don’t know anything about what’s going on with Hana-sensei.

It’s implied that the notes, explosive tags, and masked assassin are all linked. But if Hana-sensei isn’t connected to those, then what has she been doing this whole time? It’s impossible to even come up with a theory at this point. But, I suspect it has to do with Kawaki, not Kae.

Batora Exonerated

Okay, so Batora was my prime suspect at the end of last week’s episode. We didn’t hear much about him for a bit other than that he wasn’t at the school festival. And, that was a very suspicious detail. Why wouldn’t he be at the school festival?

As it turns out, I was wrong to suspect him. Batora is not the masked assassin. In fact, he attempts to protect Kae from the assassin in this episode. But, I actually realized my error in suspecting him before this reveal happened.

So, to set the stage allow me to point out that I was correct about something at the very least. Last week, I pointed out that Sōsha’s pictures from the school festival were going to be important. That’s the only thing I got right though. Her pictures weren’t important in the way I thought they would be.

I assumed she unknowingly caught the assassin in one of her pictures. And Himawari and Kawaki had the same idea as I did. But, that’s not what happened. Instead, Batora was in one of the pictures at the school festival.

Upon seeing this, Kawaki and Himawari assumed it must mean he was the assassin. However, I saw it a different way. To me, that picture of Batora wasn’t evidence that he was the assassin. Instead, it was evidence to the contrary. He’d have to be the world’s worst assassin to get caught as he did.

It was so obvious that he was looking at someone while trying not to be seen. And it’s not that he was hiding in general. He was only hiding from the person he was looking at. So, he didn’t mind if other people saw him there.

Mystery of the Assassin

Now, it’s time to get into the really interesting stuff from the episode. We don’t know who the masked assassin is because they killed themself in an explosion. The state of their body after the blast made them unrecognizable — which was the whole point.

But, the identity of the assassin isn’t the mystery I want to discuss. Instead, I want to discuss the jutsu they used when fighting against Kawaki. It was a jutsu we’ve never seen before. It looked like blue fire. But, it also destroyed a tree without burning it.

So, what exactly was this jutsu? Well, we don’t know. But, we can use some clues from the episode to figure out a bit about it. For starters, let’s look at the hand signs used by the masked assassin. Certain hand signs are associated with certain types of jutsu.

In case you aren’t aware, there are 12 basic hand signs used for jutsu — and a lot of other random ones. These 12 hand signs are Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Ram, Monkey, Bird, Dog, and Boar. You may recognize these as the 12 signs of the Chinese zodiac.

So, what hand signs did the masked assassin use to produce this jutsu? They used Tiger-Dog-Snake-Tiger. What does that tell us? It tells us that despite not burning the tree, this is a Fire-style jutsu. We know that because it ends with the Tiger sign.

Now, I’m hoping we learn more about this mystery jutsu. We don’t know what it’s called or where it comes from. Even though the assassin is dead, we could still get answers. Whoever’s controlling Hana-sensei may have some connection to the assassin still. If that’s the case, maybe they can use this jutsu too.

Conclusion

What do you think of Boruto: Naruto Next Generations Episode 269? Why do you think someone is controlling Hana-sensei? Did you ever suspect Batora of being the assassin? And what are your thoughts on the jutsu used by the masked assassin? Let me know in the comments.

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My review of Episode 270 is available now.